The ISS Has a Moment of "Gravity"

 In a moment reminiscent of Hollywood's 'Gravity', the ISS instead avoided being struck by space

debris. 

In late October, the ESA reported that the ISS lab was threatened with a collision by space junk.  The usual procedure is to have a docked Progress supply ship push the multi-toned craft out of harms way, which in this instance was a hand sized piece of metal from an earlier collision between a defunct Russian and an operational US satellite, traveling at 17000 mph.

The problem was however that there were none of the regular craft on station to pull duty until quick thinking controllers at the ESA ATV Control Center in Toulouse, France remembered that the ISS currently had the  Automated Transfer Vehicle Georges Lemaître, which ferries supplies to the station from Earth. The unmanned ship,  is controllable from Earth. Which meant that a team of engineers  at the ATV control center were able to use the supply craft to  move the ISS.

The Georges Lemaître, was instructed to fire its engine for 4 minutes which moved the ISS' orbit by one mile.

Complete Atlantic article HERE

Close Call for NASA's Fermi Gamm-ray Space Telescope!!

NASA's $690 million Fermi Space Telescope was nearly lost last year (4/3/2012) when a defunct one

and a half ton Soviet era reconnaissance satellite (cosmos 1805) missed the space telescope by only 700 feet. 

A much worse scenario was avoided when engineers instructed Fermi to perform a maneuver that took the satellite barely out of harms way.  

To get an idea of just how close this was to total destruction of the Fermi Telescope, at the speeds that both  objects were travelling, 700 feet equates to a difference of 30 milliseconds between one spacecraft entering and leaving the collision point, before the next craft enters the very same space.  Due to their size, this meant that a sizable portion of each craft would still be in the collision zone. 

As luck would have it, Fermi had onboard thrusters that were specifically designed to move the satellite out of  way of potential threats.   A one second burn of all thrusters changed Fermi's attitude enough that when April 3 2012 arrived, it missed the defunct satellite by 6 miles.  

This occurrence  only goes to heighten awareness of the growing threat to manned and unmanned spacecraft in orbit of colliding with a piece of space junk.  NASA now tracks 17,000 object larger than 4 inches across with only 7% being active satellites.  

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/02/russian-space-junk-almost-destroys-nasa-telescope/#ixzz2SB7Vp1YM

Thanks to Xnewsman for the heads up!

How About Space Dust to Clean Up Space Junk?!

I know, I have hammered on this a lot, but it IS an interesting problem that needs to be dealt with.
From the Dvice article:

• NASA estimates that "there are more than 21,000 orbital debris objects larger than 10 centimeters (roughly four inches) in diameter in low Earth orbit and approximately 500,000 object particles between one and 10 centimeters, with the number of debris particles smaller than one centimeter in excess of 100 million."

100 million people  100 million!  Not an easy cleanup for sure but there might be an easier way that doesn't involve satellites that would trap, skim or just plain blow  stuff up.  

From the Naval Research Lab comes a really different idea.  They suggest boosting 10 to 20 tons of tungsten dust into low Earth orbit.  This would form a gigantic "cloud"  that would impart huge drag on anything small passing through it. One or two passes and the object start to de-orbit all on their own.   Plus the beauty of the dust system consists of particles so small that it has no effect on larger rockets passing through and the beauty is that it cleans itself up as well!  Just as it de-orbits small pieces of debris it has the same result on it's own material, slowly de-orbiting and burning up in the upper atmosphere like so much cosmic dust!

read the complete article here

Swiss Plan to Launch a “Janitor Satellite”

Like a "Roomba" for space! Well maybe not quite but damn close. Swiss scientists have announced (according to NY Daily News) that they plan on launching what they are calling a “janitor satellite” to clean up space junk.

The $11-million satellite called "CleanSpace One" is one type of a family of proposed robot satellites first of which are planned to launch within three to five years. CleanSpace One's first tasks are to capture two Swiss owned satellites which were launched in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

As many of you know, this is a bit of a pet peeve for me. NASA alone tracks hundreds of thousand pieces of space junk large enough to damage or destroy other spacecraft, with upwards of several million pieces capable of significant damage to being lethal to EVAing astronauts.

The biggest problem to capturing space junk sounds like it should be the simplest, getting close enough to effect a capture. As any space jockey knows, translations in space are costly because all the fuel that the maneuvering engines use has to be transported from deep in Earth's gravity well, making it extremely costly. However new ultra-compact motors are first on the Swiss' drawing board. Next as we have seen time and time again, just getting a good solid grip on hardware in space is difficult at best. The Swiss are looking into revolutionary new effectors that would grab and securely hold it for disposal. And ultimately the satellite must be able to translate the captured hardware and itself back into the Earth's atmosphere where it will safely burn up.

US Backs EU's Space Conduct Code

I guess it should be no surprise that the US is one of the biggest holdout for recognizing any policy that would require some sort of sanity when it comes to controlling space trash. Well I guess someone in the upper echelons has become somewhat tired of crap falling out of the sky and potentially ruining their day because Dvice is reporting that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement -

• supporting the European Union's existing space code of conduct

The basic concern from the State Department seems to be that -

• other countries keep track of all of their space junk 

It is clear that the US government is trying to distract everyone with their interest in a sane policy on space trash.  I think the phrase "irresponsible actors" is particularly ironic.  Mainly because the biggest and most prolific agency that has been leaving garbage in orbit for the last half century or so is, well, not to difficult to figure out that the U.S. is likely one of the most irresponsible actors out there.

Like the author of the original article said:

• runs the numbers

It's clear that we have had a long standing policy of chuck it and forget it. Rather than be called on it, the government wants to spread the blame around some.   Now, that is not a bad idea, because it DOES get something going here.  Space is for everyone and I have been saying all along that by the time the general public has "low cost" access to Earth orbit, there will be nothing left but a big ole junk heap, while people planet side start ducking and covering again.   It's clear something has to happen soon or one of the greatest resources the Earth has will be useless.

Dvice article

New Satellites For Old!

Putting a satellite in orbit is massively expensive. Far from getting cheaper as the tech aged, the cost however still hovers around 10k for every pound launched. Estimates have it that there are roughly 300 billion dollars of hardware in geosynchronous orbits with a large portion of this total non functioning hardware.

DARPA is hoping to lower satellite cost significantly. How they plan to do that is elegant in it's simplicity. DARPA wants to harvest the dead hardware, which is more than likely 90% functional, for parts and build new satellites in place.

Here is what the Dvice article wrote:

• That 90% of stuff represents a lot of useful and expensive hardware. (the most useful) is the satellite's antenna, which represents the single biggest contributor to both functionality and launch cost. What DARPA wants to do is send a harvester satellite called Phoenix up to (harvest) things like antennas and solar panels from dead platforms and turn them into operational ... satellites. Tiny new controller modules called "satlets" will ride along with the harvester and be used to create new brains to get the ... parts all working together properly, effectively creating an entirely new satellite.

Now there is something I can get behind!

Complete article here

Space Junk to Triple by 2030

Space.com via Boing Boing reports that satellite communications may be in critical jeopardy due to space junk that will triple in 2030. With well over 50 countries participating in space ventures the amount of debris has risen geometrically. A new euphemism has entered the lexicon - Percussive decommissioning. Which we have seen evidence of in the past when a satellite quite literally is taken out of service by impacts from orbital debris.

The situation is soon to degrade so badly that many of the choice high altitude orbits will become unusable and satellites will have to park in lower much less optimal orbits and relay signals to other low flying satellites. Space.com calls this: an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes.

20,000 pieces of debris are now being tracked, many experts agree that a triple of this amount by 2030 is not unreasonable. Some of the increase can be attributed to more sensitive detectors but that still leaves a sizable increase over the intervening years. Add to that objects that are too small to track but at orbital speeds are every bit a lethal. Estimates range upwards of 10 times as many objects that can not be detected. (that's almost a quarter of a million bits - kiddies)

When asked if the Air Force was funding any projects to deal with debris, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command said:

• We haven’t found a way yet that is affordable and gives us any hope for mitigating space debris. The best we can do, we believe, is to minimize debris as we go forward with our operations. As we think about how we launch things, as we deploy satellites, minimizing debris is absolutely essential

Read complete Space.com article here

JAXA is going fishin!

From an article in Inhabitat is a rather unique proposal among many. It seems the Japanese space agency JAXA is teaming up with net manufacturer Nitto Seimo to go fishing in a most unusual fishing hole, for an even stranger catch. Nitto Seimo will build a kilometers-wide net made of ultra-thin triple layered metal threads. This net will be cast in Earth orbit where it will scoop up space junk.

From the article:

• The net will gradually be drawn into Earth’s magnetic field and burned up along with the abandoned satellites, engine parts and other litter it’s collected.

The USA has proposed something on a bit grander scale. From the article:

• The U.S., is proposing a satellite rigged with hundreds of butterfly-style nets that would hurl their catch toward the South Pacific, where it wouldn’t cause any damage. The satellite and nets could be reused.

Whoever shoulders the task, it will prove to be herculean. The junk in orbit consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites. Debris includes slag and dust from solid rocket motors, paint flakes, coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites to even clusters of small needles!

In mid-2009 NASA updated the debris estimate. NASA places the number of large debris items over 4 inches at 19,000, up to approximately 4 inches at about 500,000, and estimates that debris items smaller than 1/2 inch probably exceeds tens of millions.

Wikipedia article

Space Fence?

Here we go again. One of my all time favorite gripes. Space trash. As I have pointed out numerous times before, the space around Earth is cluttered with millions of objects. That makes it a hazardous area for manned spacecraft. The solution is brilliant in it's simplicity but difficult to deploy in reality. That was until the "Space Fence" became more than just a fanciful dream. This proposed system could track many of the objects around Earth in real-time. And it looks like something from a movie. From Lockheed - Martin a short film about something they like to call...."Space Fence"

Space Net to clean up Space Junk

Remember we talked about the space balloons that would send space junk burning up in the atmosphere? Well it got people thinking and here is DARPA's answer to the thousands of pieces of space junk in orbit.....a space net!

According to the Gizmodo article:

• The Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, or EDDE, would be a spacecraft with 200 nets attached to it, allowing it to gather up any errant satellites. It could then either send them into the South Pacific, angle them to burn up on reentry or even recycle the materials right there in space for use in constructing future space stations or satellites.

Recycling...there is a rich one....wana guess who put a goodly amount of that junk up there? Oh and ok, I got a question....how come NASA all of a sudden has to be the free garbage man here? aaaaaaaanyway, test flight are set for 2013 and if all goes well deployment by 2017.

PopSci

Cleaning up space junk with balloons

Here is an interesting article that I came across on the Dvice blog. Balloons could be used to help clean up orbital space junk.

According to the article, the balloon based device is called G.O.L.D. for Gossamer Orbit Lowering Device and is the brain child of Dr. Kristen Gates.

From the article:

• "GOLD" — is sent up to orbit in a box no larger than a suitcase, and then it's fastened to a piece of space junk, (which then) inflates .... (lowering whatever it is attached to) into the atmosphere, where the piece of debris will burn up. The balloon's size amplifies the amount of drag acting on the space junk already, which slowly decays an object's orbit. The added plus is that a GOLD is very inexpensive to manufacture.
  

50 Years of Space Garbage

The amount of space garbage is unbelievable! Check out this video of how space trash accumulated since the late 50s to 2000.


Phosphors via IO9

Space Sail Could Help End Space Junk

I guess it's no mystery how I feel about space junk. I honestly think that the most dangerous part about going into Earth orbit is not the environment, it's what we have done to that environment that is ultimately so very dangerous.

Well the ESA may have something that will help take care of making any news hazards. They call it The CubeSail. It is designed to help solve the problem of space debris by pushing dead satellites towards the Earth, burning them up harmlessly and getting them out of the way.

Satellite makers will be able to have the CubeSail automatically deploy when the satellite's job is done and the good news is that it should be available in 2011 for deployment.

Dvice article

Innovative Solution to Reducing Space Garbage - Sails

NewScientist posts an particularly interesting way to reduce the amount of junk hardware that is left in orbit after a launch.

The plan, as purposed by NewScientist is to reduce:

• ...the risk to spacecraft from a collision with space debris by equipping launchers with a gossamer-thin "sail". The idea is to deploy the sail after the rocket has released its payload to amplify the drag of the last vestiges of the atmosphere, and so force the rocket out of orbit.
• engineers at the European aerospace firm EADS Astrium are devising ways to build a sail that would quickly remove a spent rocket from orbit.

As it stands right now, spent booster stages and associated junk remain in orbit upwards of 100 years. The areo-breaking sail system looks to reduce this time by three quarters or 25 years.

< Complete NewScientist article >

Close Call on the ISS

The Associated Press via Boing Boing puts what happened recently on the international Space Station in perspective. As you probably heard already the ISS had a very close call with space borne debris that forced all the occupants into the safty capsule until the danger had passed. How close did the junk get? Hard to say - more than likely a couple of miles, but it is possible that it may have been tens of feet.

I have mentioned this repeatedly that there is a astounding amount of material in low Earth orbit. thousands and thousands of trackable and untrackable parts and pieces just waiting to do damage. Just last month we had one satellite destroyed by a defunct Russian satellite (yes, read defunct as junk) making hundreds more pieces to track. Now the ISS has a close call. It should become brutally obvious that this problem is not going to go away but only get worse. Our habit of just throwing things away when they are useless has come back to bite us in a big way.

As it was, the crew of the ISS only had a few hours notice that they were in danger and were fully prepared to abandon the station should the need arise.

Here is how it breaks down - From the article:

• The U.S. Space Command tracks 13,943 orbiting objects 4 inches or larger. Only about 900 of those are working satellites. The rest is litter. There are thousands more smaller pieces of junk that can't be tracked as easily.

Size is really not the issue here. Even a grain of sand going 5+ miles a second (yes that's 20,000 miles an hour) is going to do deadly damage. Last month's satellite collision may just have been the final deal breaker for the Hubble which sadly is close to the same orbital position as the debris cloud.

Safety lately has usually had tragedy attached...one would hope that we don't have to loose another space craft full of astronauts to motivate people to space as an environment every bit as important as those on Earth.